THOSE
MAD MUSICIANS by Vera Kolosova
Published by Rossia, the Russian newspaper, circulation throughout
the CIS. Considered to be one of Russia’s most serious papers. This
article appeared in the Spring of 1992.

At the end of our
conversation I didn’t ask "where is your home" because the
answer was obvious. The daughter of an Irish Diplomat, she has traveled to
many countries because of her father’s career. She does not believe in
borders between countries but rather in an independence of spirit. No, she
does not stress this. She simply lives like this. For her this is the only
way to exist. Confident that the 21st century will bring a time
when musicians will be able to play together without barriers, she named
her orchestra ENSEMBLE XXI. She is a person of the future. I for one hope
that such people are responsible for the future.

Still a lot of people
consider Lygia O’Riordan’s ideas to be quite mad. A conductor who
could have worked in the West, a musician with a European cultural
background has come to Moscow to found an international chamber orchestra.
"As a child my teachers were Hungarian and that is why I wanted to
study in Budapest at the Liszt Academy". Lygia recalls. My parents
were very worried about my going to Eastern Europe because in 1981 it was
an unusual choice. However on my fifth day in Budapest, my teacher told me
that if a musician wants to perfect his technique he should study in
Russia". She continued: "The Russian string tradition is the
greatest in the world and when I was studying with Gennady Rozsdestvensky
in Moscow I had already decided that I wanted to found an international
chamber orchestra in Moscow. In 1987 when I finished my studies it was
impossible. There was too much bureaucracy. In 1989 after I had been
working in Finland and Australia I returned to Moscow".

Now she has been working
three years with the orchestra. Musicians have come to work for her from
Finland, Germany and England. In the orchestra there are musicians from
Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Russia Armenia, Vietnam and Cuba. At the beginning
the orchestra’s membership changed. For those that thought the orchestra
was a place where one earned hard currency quickly and enjoyed touring
abroad, there was no place in the orchestra ranks. In O’Riordan’s
orchestra the work is not easy. There are long rehearsal hours. She
refuses to perform too often and will not allow the orchestra to become a
commercial venture. In other words you have to be rather mad to suffer for
your art. Lygia puts it another way however: "One must be an
idealist". In our day when we worship the super pragmatic, such
people are hard to find. "It’s easy for them to be idealistic. They
have everything anyway". I can hear the skeptics. Yes our country has
always had great respect for foreigners. More respect than it has had for
its own people at times. Yes, Lygia O’Riordan does differ from our
countrymen and women. She has a choice. At any moment she can leave Russia
and go wherever she wishes. To places where everything is already
organised and where one can be whatever one wishes. Even an idealist/ Yet,
this is precisely the point. Lygia chose to come here. To be subjects to
our laws. With us and like us. "I cannot explain this to my father. I
know that down there in your bag you are carrying another plastic bag.
Just in case you spot something in the shops. I also have a plastic bag
with me. My life has to revolve around the shops".

O’Riordan reacts
emotionally to our day to day life. She rants a room in rubles although
everybody possible tries to extract hardrcurrency from her. Touring in
Russia has become impossible because tickets for travel must be paid in
hardcurrency although it is a Moscow orchestra.

Still, people were found
who wanted to support this mad idea. The Russian Progress Bank is the
orchestra’s sponsor in Russia. Rank Xerox prints all the orchestra’s
programmers and the monthly ENSEMBLETIMES, THEIR JOURNAL FOR THE
"Friends of the orchestra". One finds a truly unique atmosphere
at the receptions organized by Foreign representatives in Moscow after the
orchestra concerts. The Patron of the orchestra is the Netherlands
Ambassador. A sponsor for the orchestra’s foreign tours is a Dutch bank
(there have been successful tours to Sweden, Finland and Germany).
Eventually the bureaucracy stopped demanding hardcurrency to rent the
Moscow concert halls and began to believe in the orchestra. The orchestra
first concert in he Bolshoi Saal will be on May 16th 1992.

They have, however, played
in many smaller chamber music halls in Moscow, creating their own special
chamber music atmosphere.

As foreigners in Moscow it
is even more difficult for them than it is for us. We have our own homes
and a genetic understanding of what is going on around us. They have none
of these advantages. Their salaries are in rubles. And even if they had
currency. They would be ashamed of using it in front of colleagues who
have none.

Sometimes they find
themselves in amazing situations… The apartment which O’Riordan shares
with concertmaster Pia Siirala is in an old house in Ostozhenka Street.
There is a quite courtyard with pleasant neighbors. Until the Cooperative
arrived bringing with it the cars that scared away all the children who
had played there watched by their grandmothers. Loud rock from their
stereos made it impossible to practice and at times sleep. The cooperative
had no intention of being considerate of anyone. Lygia tried to speak to
the director, asking him to turn down the noise. The next day she was
brutally beaten up in the courtyard by the drivers of these "New
Rulers". It was a miracle that she didn’t end up an invalid. She
was attacked with police truncheons and had her spine severely beaten,
causing terrible damage. Now, thank God, she is out of hospital and will
even conduct a concert. The cooperative is still flourishing and the
police refuse to do anything. Lygia and Pia have left the apartment and
are afraid to appear in the house in Ostozhenka St. And there you have the
whole story. And yet, Lygia O’Riordan is determined to live in this
country until the next century. A private business disliked by many
Russians as their dealings are often mafia based. They have flourished in
their years following perestroika and glasnost and are regularly the
scenes of crime.
Translated by Rene Newton